Joystick Controlled Alarm Clock

December 1, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

While it may sound like a dirty joke, turning off the alarm clock with a wiggle of your joystick is entirely possible here. [Sean] was inspired by the light gun alarm clock featured in Make magazine a while back and decided to build something similar. Instead of going the light gun route, he chose to use a joystick. You set the time on the clock using the joystick and the fire button works as a snooze button. Though it currently doesn’t have a snooze-waggle feature, it could without too much effort.

[Sean]’s server is small. He notes in his comments that he can’t handle the traffic from us. This is why we had to find it our selves instead of him submitting it. Tsk Tsk. To help, we have included the few other pictures of his build after the break. If you really want to overload his poor little server, you’ll find the link to his site here, instead of at the beginning of the article.

Continue reading “Joystick Controlled Alarm Clock” →

USB Accelerometer Controller

November 20, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szZv2YYQm0U]

As you can see above, there is no wiimote in that accessory steering wheel. There is, instead, a home-made accelerometer controller that connects to the pc via USB. Based around a PIC 18F2550 and a 2 axis accelerometer, this device is detected by windows as a standard controller. The schematic and source code are available on his website. He says it can also be used as a “motion mouse”. You can see a video of that after the break.

When we first saw the video, we thought it might be the same person as the accelerometer controlled maze project, due to the wiimote steering wheel casing.

Continue reading “USB Accelerometer Controller” →

Build Your Own Joystick

September 17, 2009 by Mike Szczys 38 Comments

macgyver_joystick

What can you build with a ballpoint pen and some extra parts? [gzip] found himself with a bonus box of right angle switches and other miscellaneous parts and set out to build a joystick. Simple arcade joysticks use switches that are actuated by the movement of the stick and this design embraces the concept. The four tactile switches are mounted on protoboard facing each other with part of a ballpoint pen in the middle. When the pen is moved it presses against one or more switches to close, completing a circuit. For good measure he even incorporated a fire button into the top of the “stick”. Now we just need someone to make this work with a tiny Ms. Pac-Man emulator.

2 Axis Joystick From VCR Parts

June 7, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 5 Comments

joy

[eric] has found that he can build a pretty nice 2 axis joystick out of some VCR parts. Specifically, he’s using the idler wheel. When you disassemble the idler wheel, you’ll find that it has a bevelled washer in the perfect location to help with smooth joystick operation. Add a spring and a hole in some wood and you’ve got the basics. All you need to add now are the switches. This is a fantastic example of recycling parts, you never would have guessed that it was made from trash.

Wireless TAC-2 Joystick

February 4, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 9 Comments

wjs

[Aki] had a broken TAC-2 joystick that was just begging for some new and improved use. Since it was the cable that was broken, [Aki] had the idea to make it wireless. He designed custom boards for the transmitter and receiver. Each is controlled by an ATTiny2313. He fitted it with the stock connector so it could possibly even still work on a commodore 64. He hasn’t tested that yet though.

[via the Hack A Day flickr pool]

Atari Xbox 360 Controller

January 9, 2009 by Eliot 6 Comments

3600

It’s amazing what [Ben Heckendorn] can manage to crank out in just five hours. This time it’s a wireless Xbox 360 controller stuffed inside an Atari 2600 controller. The guts are from a Guitar Hero 3 controller. It’s a fairly compact board and [Ben] used thin ATA wire for the connections. While it doesn’t have all the buttons of a true Xbox controller, this 3600 controller has enough to make it useful in arcade games. The joystick portion was reused without any modification. Things like the guide button and ring of light are located underneath.

Fatality And A Frosty Mug: Arcade Bar

September 23, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

We’ve seen our fair share of home made arcade machines, some complex and some simple. This one stands head and shoulders above the rest with its ability to combine two of our deepest loves: beer and video games. There’s not a lot of information, just a few pictures. We’d love to see some build shots or action shots. We’d love to test it out actually.

Here’s an update: [Burke LaShell] is the maker of this fine project. You can see more pictures of it in this thread. Thanks, [Shawn].

[via Gizmodo]